Chatty Vacationers

I noticed that lots of people were chatty out in Yosemite. I don't know if it was because people are more friendly or because I was wearing more interesting clothes...

• A guy noticed my t-shirt said Wyeth on the back (they were a big sponsor of Collegeville 5K) and started asking me if I was a drug rep for them because he and his wife were both retired pharmacists.
• A guy stopped to talk to me in the store when he noticed my Broad Street Run t-shirt. Evidently, he grew up in Media and had run the race a bunch of times before moving to the west.
• A guy commented to Brian about his Disney 1/2 marathon t-shirt saying he did the race the same year (although upon further reflection that guy was kind of an oddball and I think he just made it up)
• A lady struck up a conversation in line at the store because she noticed my NYC Marathon hat. She's never done a marathon but it's thinking about taking up triathlon training.
• A lady started talking to us in the cappuccino line and told us that McDonald's premium coffee marketing scheme was just that - a scheme. Same coffee, new cups and ad campaign. Further converstation involving the new style WaWa cups revealed the fact that she was from Delaware.
• A park employee commented on how cool my ugly spotted LL Bean fleece is.
• Two little girls on a class trip asked me about a million questions while I was riding the bus with them. Questions varied from where had I hiked that day (Half Dome) to how many states have I been in (too many to count on the bus ride) and what color is the liberty bell.

Yosemite Trip Day 2: the Valley

We spent our second real day of vacation exploring Yosemite Valley. This means that we went to the visitor center, checked out the Indian village and a cool museum of Native American baskets and clothing (interesting how they use the term Native American for the museum/artifacts but stuck with Indian for the village. I wonder why that is?).

We also walked along a lot of the paths through the meadows and along the edge of the Valley and just marveled at Half Dome. It's hard to do anything while you're there but look up at Half Dome. It's so big and so unusual that you just stare at it. The picture I have posted I just found on the internet -- I'll replace it with one of ours when I get a chance. That's one of the most popular views of the mountain and it looked a lot like that on our trip -- but there was no snow on Half Dome during our trip.

Later we explored the area called Happy Isles where there had been a huge (scary) rockfall in 1997 and then took a walk up to a place called Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake isn't a lake anymore (the park people used to dredge the pool but they stopped doing it in 1970 so now it's almost totally gone) but a giant sandbox at the base of Half Dome. You can stand there and let yourself feel like a tiny ant as you look up the face. We didn't see any climbers on the rock but evidently people do climb up. They're nuts.

Yosemite Trip, Day 1: Wawona + Mariposa Grove

We arrived in San Francisco around noon on Saturday and drove to Yosemite that afternoon. We chose to take the long way and enter the park via the South entrance near Wawona because we had a room at the 'historic Wawona hotel' for our first night.

We thought this was a good plan because we'd be in the park ready to go on Sunday morning instead of having two travel days. It really was a pretty good plan except for the fact that we were up at 4:30 AM in order to get to the airport on time and driving the 4+ hours from San Francisco to the park was rough. Especially towards the end when it was dark and the roads were scary and twisty. Thank God Brian was driving!

We fell into bed at about 9:00 and slept with the windows open to let in the very chilly mountain air. The chilly mountain air was even chillier in the moring when we got up and I actually got to wear my convertable mountain pants on the very first day of the trip!

We headed to the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoia trees after exploring at the cute Wawona hotel and visitor center. If you haven't seen a giant sequoia in person I can't explain to you how incredibly massive and cool they are. They're just mind bogglingly huge. And very cool. This was a nice easy way for us to ease into the park because the trails were gentle and mostly short. It flashed us back to our trip to Sequoia National Park five years ago and since we had such a great time on that trip it really put us into a good mood.

The most memorable thing about this day was a strange encouter with a crab working at the Wawona store. I ran in there in the afternoon to get some sodas and pretzels before we made the drive up to Yosemite Valley. I went into the store and picked up two 20 oz Cokes and a bag of Rold Gold pretzels. The total bill came to $5.07

I pulled my money from my pocket and see that I have a $5 bill and a $20 bill. I said out loud "oh rats" when I looked at my money and I hand the check-out guy the $20 bill.

He does not take the money but instead looks at me and says again that the total is $5.07. I don't reply, still holding out the $20.

"Do you have .07 cents?" he asks in a disgusted tone.

Just for the record, I was wearing hiking clothes (t-shirt and shorts) and was covered in dirt so I clearly didn't have a purse or anything with me.

I hold out my money clip with the $5 bill in one hand and the $20 in the other hand and say out loud "I have a 5 and a 20".

He then lets out a power sigh and says "well, maybe I can find .07 here". And he starts rooting around in some unseen penny jar behind the counter. He doesn't come up with the money -- gives me a dirty look -- and says "I'll check my pocket". And then he roots around in his own pocket to find the .07 cents.

Then he says "Give me the $5" like he's doing me a huge favor.

So I did and left with my food.

It was totally bizarre and extremely off putting. Am I crazy for thinking he was a big jerk? I mean I tried to pay for the stuff -- I had the money to pay for the stuff -- he was just unwilling to accept my $20. That's not a ridiculous bill to be using, it's not like I was trying to pay with a $100 or something crazy.